How do you deal with your own mortality?

This does not affect younger people as much as people who are actually past some stage in their life (youth in particular)

I really did not know that it troubled people on a regular basis until I heard it come up a couple times. Normally (slap me please) I feel that the rest of the world just kind of floats by, and I am the only one that does not live on a day by day by promotion by marriage by kids basis, all these milestones that people expect to have, and they do, until the last one they have is death.

You could look at it as I sometimes do: Time is immaterial. You cannot compare the temporary with the infinite. Infinity will always blot out the temporary, so the ratio of life to death is effectively 0:infinity which means that life does not exist. No matter how long our lives are, or how short, they will still amount to nothing, mathematically. If you drop a pebble in a swimming pool, and then continuously increase the size of the pool, naturally the ratio of pebble to water gets smaller. What if you took an alien concept to us mortals; infinity, and applied it to the ratio, there would be no pebble.

You, tomorrow, will be on your deathbed. I am not joking in the least. Maybe you'll even remember this post all those years ago. Really, time is not experienced. Your world is experienced, and you can see the effect of time on it, but sooner rather than later, it will all be gone, and nothing can prepare you for that. Not that you need to. You really don't have to cross a bridge at gunpoint, because you always have another option. But even if death was the most horrible, infinitely painful experience that ripped the soul from your body and left you in the coldest void imaginable to infinitely painful eternal torment and despair, it would still happen, and there would be nothing you could do about it. Even going utterly insane, or living life to the absolute fullest and having the most fulfilling life possible by mortal standards, or by being an average person, or ending your life early, or putting yourself in a coma for the rest of your years could not stop it.


On a final and more optimistic note, if it has only lived for the tiniest fraction of a unit of time, it still has lived, and the universe can harbor it, so our universe is not a void. Compare dime to a void: The void is infinitely simple: Nothing exists in it. Perfectly circular and unchanging. But life would break those boundaries, even for the tiniest time, so the universe would cease to be a void and become victim to anomaly.

After that warm-up, how do you deal with your own mortality?

PS: The warm up was not comprehensive and obviously takes liberties, but it was meant as more of a brainstormer.

My mortality... hmmm... Well, I guess I simply accept it. I know I won't live forever, and had a few close calls in the past. I could die tomorrow or in 50 years time or whatever. I guess I don't really care about death itself, only really on what the fuck I should do with the life I have.

When I was like 7 years old I'd be awake all night long worrying about my mortality. I realized the passage of time didn't exist the way it seemed, because it seemed like it'd take forever for me to be 7, and here I was. Therefore, the realization of mortality can affect the youth, it's a simple realization that time passes infinitely fast as long as one locks themselves into the milestone style of living.

My first thing to turn to was Christianity and it remained my core belief until I was 12. I remember simply having nothing else to turn to, and I'd been told Jesus and God were real and everything. of course, given the fact that I over analyze everything, it couldn't possibly make it as my religion past the age of 12. I went from agnostic to atheist to LeVayist, back to atheist, to existentialist, but most of the time I didn't go by any label because my beliefs were open, I didn't know anything for certain. I still don't, so I don't cling onto some sort of religious label like atheism or buddhism.

Because the truth is, I wanted to find out what existed for CERTAIN. I can't find what real truth is if I decide whatever truth I found "makes enough sense" for me to settle on it. My realization that my life was infinitely short has been the motivation of everything I did from ages 7-18. When I was 14 I decided since I'd never be able to prove God or an afterlife existed, I might as well just act as if it didn't until proven differently. I thought it would always be impossible to learn more.

And I learned that even if Heaven didn't exist for my consciousness, it still existed for everyone else on Earth after I died. Heaven is leaving the world as a better place then how you entered it. So yeah, I became focused on doing good for people because if I could do good and spread love, it was like a way for me to validate my existence.

And fortunately enough, when I was 18 a whole mess of information started coming from all over the place, it was like I was energized to do non-stop esoteric research day and night. Within a month my entire outlook on the world changed. Religions all tied together into one flawless design wrapped in symbolism and heavily coated in corrupt manipulation that I had to check 100s of different sources in order to see beyond. Every myth and legend I read became confirmed by 10 others, and a logical concept of existence beyond the physical world began to form in my brain.

I stopped being frightened of my mortality long before I realized death was an illusion, and I think that's possibly a necessary realization, you have to face your egos destruction as a real possibility if you're ever going to really live.

And now I take joy in the small things, I believe though my body will be given to the ground, my personality will slowly dissolve and my memories will be recorded into the ethereal library, my awareness will remain. So, I've let go of everything except the pure enjoyment of life. That doesn't mean I just sit around all day, relaxing. The more work you put in, the more joyous your experience can become, potentially. Doesn't always work out, though. It's not exactly fair or anything.

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You could look at it as I sometimes do: Time is immaterial.

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I'm pretty sure Einstein didn't write this down when he was writing special relativity.

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Infinity will always blot out the temporary, so the ratio of life to death is effectively 0:

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No, no, no. Firsly, saying infinity is nonsense, please. Lastly, the ratio is meaningless. The proper way to say is this, as x tends to infinity. You can only tend to infinity.

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which means that life does not exist

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No it doesn't, seriously you have only proven that the ratio tends to 0 as time increases. You cannot say life does not exist, since it does. As I take a bite out of a cake, the cake tends to 0, now saying the cake didn't exist is nonsense.

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What if you took an alien concept to us mortals; infinity, and applied it to the ratio, there would be no pebble.

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Actually there would be a pebble, seriously ratio means crap.

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Compare dime to a void: The void is infinitely simple: Nothing exists in it. Perfectly circular and unchanging.

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Nothing exists, is not infintely simple, firstly define what you mean by infintely simple. Perfectly circular, which would be a contradiction, how can nothing be circular, hence it has no properties therefore it cannot be circular by definition.

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PS: The warm up was not comprehensive and obviously takes liberties, but it was meant as more of a brainstormer.

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More brain, less storm.

Anyway, there is no free will, you're actions our determined by the laws of physics. If you have only the illusion of choice, than you're not really alive to start with.

You are just the most pleasant person, aren't you? How many times have you done that on this forum? People were able to give perfect answers, it's not like you need to fix anything by putting the scientifically correct terms in the OP. Chances are nobody would know what the heck I was talking about.

O MIGHTY WENDYLOVE! SHOW US THE INFINITELY IMPECCABLE ANSWER TO LIFE!

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Originally Posted by Vance

O MIGHTY WENDYLOVE! SHOW US THE INFINITELY IMPECCABLE ANSWER TO LIFE!

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I can answer that:

Your Mum.

Without her, you wouldn't be alive. There, an answer to life. :lol:

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You are just the most pleasant person, aren't you?

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Ignorance is not bliss.

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People were able to give perfect answers, it's not like you need to fix anything by putting the scientifically correct terms in the OP

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Granted, if you're going to talk about infinity, atleast stick to the proper notation.

Basically, as x tends to infinity, this happens. Saying something is infinity is nonsense. Actually, there is more to this, however I have only studied calculus and not analysis.

The abuses of logic and mathematics is not fun to read in this thread.

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Chances are nobody would know what the heck I was talking about.

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Granted, however I really don't like people talking about infinity when they proberly haven't done one course in calculus.

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Without her, you wouldn't be alive.

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Unless this is a computer simulation.

This is just a illusion.

He appear out of nothing.

Quantum Vacumm fluxs.

He's not real, he is just you're imagination.

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I think you belong in a calculator.

A calculator that claims 2+3=23 maybe.

Time does not exist, only development and cycles. We use cycles to keep track of the state of the world so we can predict what lies in the horizon. Without cycles, we'd have no way of organizing our lives.

But as life extends infinitely both in the past and the future, time in itself doesn't exist at all.

Fear of mortality used to bother me a lot, until I realized where it came from. People seem to always have these expectations of life. One of the core ones is that it has to be validating in some way. Some people just want to make a positive impact, some just want to be remembered, etc. The other is that we can't seriously lose this consciousness some day. Naturally we like existing, and its pretty overwhelming to think that we'll cease to exist some day.

My fear subsided when I realized these expectations are meaningless. I think we're damn lucky to be here in the first place, so why have expectations for life when its essentially a gift. My only requirement now is to make sure I'm doing something worthwhile with the time I'm given. Some people tell me I'm morbid for thinking life is essentially pointless, but I couldn't give half a shit. I've never been more content.

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Originally Posted by wendylove

Anyway, there is no free will, you're actions our determined by the laws of physics. If you have only the illusion of choice, than you're not really alive to start with.

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I've considered that as well, but the illusion's so damn convincing I usually just end up forgetting about that concept anyway. :D

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Originally Posted by bluefinger

I can answer that:

Your Mum.

Without her, you wouldn't be alive. There, an answer to life. :lol:

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That would be the prelude to or cause of life. The answer to life is living, if you;re philosophical, or death, if you believe that the universe abhors life.

As to how I deal with my mortality, whenever I remember that I am, to all my knowledge, alive, and so far live has a recorded fatality rate of immeasurably close to 100% (does not include those still living), I simply think, "Oh, come on. I'm not dead yet. (monty python holy grail voice) How do you know I'm going to die? I could die tomorrow, I could just have a spontaneous remission from this mortality thing that's been going around. Why the heck do ya assume that since most living things are now dead, everyone alive will eventually die too? So what! Probably, but I can wait until it becomes a concern to worry, and it probably won;t be a concern by the time anything;s permanent." (note: I intend to hedge my bets with life insurance, and probably a will.)